Village Voice Writer Alerts Public to Colleague’s ‘Casual Racism’

Runnin' Scared is right...

Oooh, fight! Tony Ortega might have to go down to The Village Voice‘s cafeteria and separate Steven Thrasher from beating Running Scared‘s new kid* James King to a bloody pulp…with his words.

No, it’s not a physical fight, because this isn’t the Norman Mailer days anymore, but Mr. Thrasher, a 3-year veteran of the paper, has a few choice words (1363 of them, to be exact) regarding Mr. King’s “casual racism” in his colleague’s post.

We’re summing up all the problems that Mr. Thrasher has with Mr. King only because it takes a really long time to parse through them in his article, especially when he keeps making statements that undercut his argument like this:

Now, I think it can be argued that King had a point. Indeed, he seems to be saying that crimes against the elderly should not be elevated to the level of lynching, and he’s giving some weight to lynching in this way.

But by the time you get down to the “Baby Mama” statements, Mr. Thrasher is full on thrashing:

Baby Mama? Why not just call her “Hoochie Mama,” Mr. King? ‘Cause the murdered woman deserves no respect in death, right? Because she allegedly wasn’t married, had a child in sin, and got herself killed? Is that how it is?

As Mr. Thrasher notes, he is the only African-American staff writer at The Village Voice, so when Mr. King responds to this long-winded pummeling, he should choose his words carefully to avoid another smack-down. If not by Mr. Thrasher, then by The Voice‘s commenters, who don’t seem too fond of the new writer either.

The New York Observer reached out to both parties for comments, but has not received an official comment from either party.

*Despite recently starting at The Voice, Mr. King has been blogging for sister publication Phoenix New Times since 2009.